Hockey has long been synonymous with toughness, silence, and survival. But for one former player, watching Heated Rivalry cracked open something far deeper—and far more hopeful—than anyone expected.
Heated Rivalry has undeniably opened doors for its cast, but its impact has reached well beyond television. It has reached locker rooms, group chats, and memories long buried beneath years of discipline and denial. One former hockey player, Matt Kenny (@matt__runs), recently shared a deeply personal message on Instagram about the show—one that stopped people mid-scroll and left many quietly undone.
“I f’ing love that Heated Rivalry is having its moment,” Kenny wrote. “I love how loudly queer joy is being celebrated. That matters. It always has.”
Source: @matt__runsBut alongside that celebration, Kenny wanted to make room for another truth.
“I also want to hold space, hand in hand with that celebration, for those of us who didn’t get the version you’re watching.”
RELATED: Sean Avery Says Heated Rivalry Could Open Doors for Gay Hockey Players
When Hockey Was Everything—and Too Much
As a closeted gay kid, hockey wasn’t just a sport for Kenny. It was his entire world.
“Hockey was my world and the place I learned how to survive,” he shared. “I played at a competitive level for over twelve years, sometimes for two teams at once, travelling between cities, spending hours on buses, chasing ice time.”
Source: @matt__runsEarly mornings. Missed sleep. Bruised bodies. Quiet devotion. Anyone who has lived inside hockey culture knows the rhythm—and the cost.
On Christmas Eve, long after the house went quiet, Kenny pressed play on Heated Rivalry, knowing it might be difficult.
“I didn’t expect it to break me.”
He didn’t make it through the first episode.
“I ended up on the floor, unable to breathe, shaking in the glow of the Christmas tree, carrying a panic attack that followed me through the night.”
What overwhelmed him wasn’t the show itself—it was recognition.
“It wasn’t the show. It was how close it came to so many things I had buried. The fear, the joy, the love, the internalized homophobia.”
Loving a Hockey Player in the Shadows
Kenny went on to share something he had never said publicly before.
“Because once, a long time ago, I loved a hockey player. A real one. A boy on his way to the big leagues.”
It’s a simple sentence, but it carries the weight of an entire erased history. Not a crush. Not a phase. Love. And not just any boy, but someone moving toward the very future Kenny was being trained to believe he could never have. In the world of hockey, where potential is protected at all costs and deviation is treated like a threat, loving the wrong person can feel as dangerous as it is intoxicating.
Their relationship lasted nearly a year, but it had to exist in fragments—stolen moments, coded glances, tension stretched thin between tenderness and fear. It was love lived in the margins, where every touch carried risk and every goodbye felt heavier than it should. They weren’t just hiding from teammates or coaches; they were hiding from a system that had never made room for boys like them to love out loud.
What Kenny describes isn’t just a secret relationship—it’s the quiet grief of knowing that something real had to remain unseen to survive. That kind of love doesn’t disappear when it ends. It stays in the body. It reshapes how you move through locker rooms, through friendships, through adulthood itself.
And when it finally breaks, it doesn’t just break a heart—it rewires a life.
“We lived in shadows, held together by tension and tenderness, desire and fear, the awkward softness of boys trying to love in a world that doesn’t want them.”
When it ended, it didn’t end gently.
“Not cleanly. But in the kind of heartbreak that doesn’t just hurt. It rewires you.”
The Loneliness of the Closet
Perhaps the most devastating part of Kenny’s message is how invisible that pain remained.
“And to this day, nobody ever knew. Not my friends. Not my teammates. Not my family.”
He carried on—school, work, parties—while grief lived quietly inside him.
“Shame is efficient like that. It teaches you to disappear, to endure quietly, to survive without witnesses.”
Eventually, Kenny left hockey.
“Not because I stopped loving it,” he wrote, “but because loving it came at the cost of being safe.”
Why This Moment Matters
Kenny shared his story for one reason:
“I’m sharing this because for a brief moment, I am seeing that we may have a future where boys can love boys.”
Visibility matters. Stories matter. Especially in hockey, where silence has long been mistaken for strength.
Recently, Hudson Williams—who plays Shane on Heated Rivalry—shared that closeted athletes from hockey, football, basketball, and beyond have been messaging him after watching the show. The impact is real, and it’s spreading.
For the Kid Who Wore #4
Kenny ended his message with something quietly profound.
“Ten years ago I started writing a story I never thought anyone could ever care about,” he wrote. “Last night, I started again. Fifteen pages in, with steady hands and a strong heart.”
Not for closure. Not for comfort.
“But for the kid who wore #4, with KENNY stitched across his back.”
Source: @matt__runsThe kid who loved deeply and quietly. The kid who learned to survive in silence. The kid who believed his story was something to hide—until now.
He closed with a simple request: kindness.
And a reminder many of us needed to hear.
“We are never alone.”